Où es-tu, Papa?
by PlanetOfTheWeepingWillow
Summary: Arthur, a failing author with an addiction, François (or Francis) teaches poetry at a run-down school, and Alfred with a past filled with bullet-holes, cross paths. Their journey leads them to self-discovery and self-respect. Prejudices melt away, the past is respected but not over glorified, and salvation for a miserable author in a foreign country is found. Eventual FrUk
1. Bla Bla Bla, c'est pas important

**1.**

Bla Bla Bla, c'est pas important

'But you're a different colour.'

'Am I?' François asked, placing his fingertips gently against his cheeks. The budding stubble hissed as his fingers slid down his cheek. 'And is that a bad thing?'

Across from him, Alfred shrugged.

'Why did you mention it, then?'

Another shrug.

François smiled. Orange autumn sunlight filtered in through the blinds. They illuminated his brown eyes, highlighting the flecks of gold. Patience swam in his gaze. Alfred didn't seem to notice or care. He looked away from him.

'It's different from most of the people's I've seen here.' Alfred said.

He ran a hand over his pale forearm in demonstration. On his ring finger he wore a ring, the gold paint chipping off of the plastic. He occasionally ran his thumb along it or twisted it in his hands. He never took it off. Also, he never answered any of the questions clinging to it like fog.

François leaned forwards, placing his hands on the desk. 'You're a new student here. I know of your past. I'm not going to ask you about it. I think you've had enough trauma as it is. So, instead, I want _you _to ask me the questions.'

'That's fine.'

'What do you want to ask? About the school? About our disciplinary system?'

Alfred stared at him, scowling. 'Dis-dissiplanary?' He asked. 'What's that?'

'It's how we punish bad behaviour.' François said with a nod.

'Oh.'

'Do you want to know about it?'

'Not really.'

The poetry teacher in the 'ghetto' part of the city, could only press his lips together and nod. His dark hair, almost black, was tied back with a simple, flimsy white string. Alfred eyed it occasionally. He asked nothing. He mentioned nothing.

François grew bored of the silence. There were things to do, people to see. He also had to contact that author, Arthur Kirkland, about their business deal. François nearly forgot about Alfred before him until Alfred sat up suddenly, squinting. His eyes turned into blue slits.

'Can you see what that says?' François asked, pointing at the poster on the other side of the wall.

Alfred pulled his eyes away from the window, where he had seen a flicker of movement. His shoulders relaxed when he noticed the bird escaped from the canopy of trees. He squinted at the poster.

'Tr… ree…'

Alfred continued to move towards the poster, blinking hard. He attempted to read it. François urged him to walk up to it. Alfred stood up and walked towards it. Once he could properly see the poster, he attempted to read it. His voice began more confident. He read slowly, but he could read: most importantly.

'Try and you shall succeed. Dig your namely deeply enough in the sand, and even the ocean cannot ef—ef—f…?'

'Efface.' François gently interjected.

'Efface.' Alfred wet his lips, placing his hands behind his back. He was fifteen years old. Long scars were carved against the back of his flesh, hiding beneath the sleeves of his freshly cleaned sheets. His adoptive parents were kind.

'Go on.' François said.

'Efface it.'

'Now, read it all.'

Alfred read it all fluently, testing it a few times. The corner of his lips twitched in the danger of a smile. He looked at François who gave him an approving nod.

'Now all we need to do is give you some glasses. You can't seem to see well.'

Alfred pointed to his ear. 'But I already have a hearing aide.' The cream-coloured device stuck out of his ear, a thin wire curling around it and under his shirt. The battery was hooked to his belt loop.

'Glasses are for your eyes. Spectacles.'

Alfred raised his eyebrows. 'So I can see better?'

'Yes.'

'Oh.'

'Do you not understand what it's for?' François asked, surprise gripping his voice.

'No, I understand but…'

Alfred shifted uncomfortably.

'—but when I was _there _the people with glasses were the bosses. And the kids who came with glasses weren't allowed to do what we did because they could break. So I was afraid to need them. I thought the world was supposed to look fuzzy. Even when I look through glass and I see it better I still think it's not right.'

'Well, we're beyond that. You're safe now. I know you don't understand that yet, but soon you will. Give it time.'

Alfred said nothing.

'Do you want to play with your friends?' François asked.

Alfred shrugged.

'I'll ask you to come in the morning before school next week. First thing. Will you come?'

Alfred nodded stiffly.

'Good. Don't forget about it.'

Alfred left once he was dismissed. He didn't seem relieved or disappointed. He walked away without looking back. His shoes squeaked against the ground, his steps muffled. The door shut.

François leaned back in his desk. He placed his hands against his face. Tiny black and pale lines covered his brown skin, shifting as he moved his hands.

He wanted to be a teacher. His passion for poetry couldn't be stifled. To mix them was his dream. And here he was, with a teaching degree in both and a paying job to utilise it. He had to be happy. It, in retrospect, turned out the exact way he wanted it to.

No, not exact. It turned out pretty close, though.

The school he was teaching at was nowhere near the circle of schools he had wanted. He had dreamed of standing in the middle of a spiralling array of seats. The university students would file in, ready to listen to his advanced poetry lessons. The students would want to be there. They would do their work. He could grade harshly. He could make jokes.

Even teaching at a normal high school would have been fine.

This, what he had now, was not fine. He was in the poorer part of the country. He lived uptown. He had to make a commute to drive to these students who didn't care. He had to hear the giggly girls in the back laugh.

_'Blah blah blah!_' They would hiss.

He would try to ignore it. Tell himself these kids weren't going anywhere anyway.

And then he had to wonder why he got stuck here. Was it the colour of his skin? His heritage? His name was French, just like anyone else. When he applied they didn't see his face. Maybe they innately knew. François had been denied some schools, set aside in others, and eventually he was becoming desperate for a job. This opened up. What could go wrong? He thought vainly.

A knock on the door startled him out of his thoughts.

François sat up, walking to the door. The steady raps continued impatiently. 'Come in.' François said.

The door swung open. François grinned.

'I'm taking you to lunch so we can discuss this. Do you have time?' Arthur asked.

The man's relentlessly green eyes pinned onto François'. His hair stuck up in every direction, refusing to be tamed. He wore a leather jacket over a black shirt and tight jeans. He spoke to François in broken French and, ultimately, resorted to English. François didn't mind either way.

'I have time.'

They walked away from the dumpy grey building. In the court Alfred was sitting on one side, panting slightly after a fast game of football. The black and white ball sped past on the cement, passing between legs. Hollers raced out from throats, followed by insults. Someone spotted François and the vulgarities lessened. Like a tidal wave, once François was out of sight, it rose up again.

Arthur walked in front of François. His notebook was stuck to his side, tucking between his elbow and his ribcage. His steps were measured, but brisk. He didn't like this part of town.

Once outside on the streets and a bit down, where a bunch of shops flourished, he relaxed visibly.

'It isn't so bad.' François said.

'Maybe to you. If you haven't forgotten, I'm from the posh part of London and I simply haven't gotten used to towns where the graffiti is actually legible and means something.'

Arthur pointed to a sprawling of green graffiti painted across the white-washed wall of a hardware store.

'YOUR RIGHT GOVERMENT! WE DONT MATTER!' It said.

'I said legible, not grammatically correct.' Arthur added. Going on a muted rant of the difference between 'your' and 'you're'.

François chuckled softly.

'I'm guessing you want to have some coffee? Not a shot of beer?' Arthur teased.

'Coffee sounds just fine.'

Arthur took him to a cheaper coffee shop. François payed upfront. He knew Arthur hadn't published a bestseller in two years. His money was running out. Although Arthur complained, he didn't seemed convinced of his own retorts.

They sat and chatted idly. Arthur alternated from snarky comments to distant, vague comments. What a hard face to read, François thought. They had three cups of coffee and, finally, Arthur set his notebook on the table. He rubbed his eyes and sighed deeply, as if his head throbbed in pain.

'Look through it. If you find a good story you can use it for class. I dumbed down the language.'

'Dumbed it down? That sounds insulting.'

'Like you weren't thinking the same bloody thing.'

François bit his lip. He had only once cast a stray, contemptuous glare at the school. Arthur picked it up faster than sand soaks up water. He knew in that moment that François gentle side had its limits. It didn't stretch across the entire country of his existence.

Arthur showed him two stories. _Crimson Butterflies _which as a story about a young woman who misses her bus and runs after a stranger in a dress decorated in red insects. 'That story can teach the symbolism of colours and how "crimson" differs from "red".' Arthur added. The other was called _Storm _which revolved around a young man who was half robot, an android, and how he faced a bout of prejudice in his schools.

To this story Arthur only nodded briskly. The message was clear. François took the two copies, Arthur's own were at his cramped little apartment, and stuffed them in his pocket.

'Do they like you?' Arthur asked, leaning forwards, resting his chin against his palm. He watched as François picked up his wallet to pay for the stories. Fifteen euros each. Arthur accepted it thankfully.

'Who likes me? The students?'

'Yes.'

'I suppose.' François looked at the foggy window. A couple in front of it sat, smoking up a storm. The man flexed his biceps, showing of the tattoo of a dragon. The woman in return showed her kew nose piercings.

'Do they…?' Arthur asked, clenching his teeth. He expressed a derogatory term, mouthing it silently.

François started in surprise. 'Why? Most of them have my same ethnicity. Sometimes they mock me and call me a fairy.'

'I see.'

'What about you, dear foreigner?'

'I don't really like this place much. Hell, I don't like any place much.' Arthur said.

From his tone of voice, François knew better than to prod him for further answers. Arthur clammed up, hiding his pearls of knowledge and emotions. Nothing else could be found from there.

'Maybe,' François began, growing excited, 'Maybe you could come by and give a lecture at my school. We have a little funding. Not enough for trips but enough to get you over there. Suck it up for a little bit and earn some money. Give these kids a chance.'

'Maybe.' Arthur echoed.

A trail of cigarette smoke wafted up the red ceiling. Bicycles clattered outside, bouncing against cobbled stones.

'You know,' Arthur said when the silence went on too long, 'They should have given me a key to heaven when I decided to write.'

* * *

><p><em>I do not own Hetalia<em>

_This is race-bent!France. _

_Many of the events portrayed here are based off of actual events. What those are will become evident soon. _


	2. J'ai mal

**2.**

J'ai mal

François shut his closest and tightened the lock. Outside the door the shrill cries of children playing as they ran to school rang out down the empty streets. Slowly, each apartment building and each tiny home began to awake. François sighed. The next week he would begin school. Today was one of his few days off before the break ended.

New responsibilities came with this time of year. He had to make sure Alfred got along fine. He had to make sure the advanced students didn't get too caught up in their circumstances, also, and he had to check that no student got a glass shard in their eye after some feisty roughing-up. The male students liked to do that at the beginning of the year.

François recalled with some amusement his first day. Just as he was walking to class, his head held high and warm coffee in his stomach, he heard a cry. A vulgarity followed, then a squeak of shoes against the floor, and finally the dull thuds of fists meeting flesh. He rushed to the scene, ready to chastise them.

As he approached several students stepped in front of him. François grew urgent, his gentle eyes hiding under his furrowed brows.

'What is this?' he hissed.

'Rite of passage.' One of the students said. The others laughed, cheering the fight on.

In the middle of the hall, just outside of class, one of the largest, toughest boys with a half-shaved head and glistening diamond earrings was knocking a smaller kid senseless. The kid tumbled to the ground, protecting himself with tiny fists curled. A dark flurry of fists met him.

'Stay back, we have to do this.' Another student said.

François stepped back, walking towards another teacher. She turned away from them, pushing her brass key into her classroom door. François demanded she tell him what was happening.

'Let it pass. They'll get their energy out this way. Better than having them roughing it up during class.' She said simply. She didn't like being at this school.

_My skin's like milk. _She said offhandedly. Her hair was crimson-coloured, tied back into a braid wrapped around her face.

_Sick bitch._

Some liked to call her that.

_Now, let's be peaceful. _

Like that would ever happen.

François woke from his recollections when the phone rang. He approached it calmly, putting it against his ear as he prepared tea.

'Good morning!'

'Good morning, Nicole.' François said to his cousin.

'So… Did it work out?'

'The business deal?'

'Yes. He's a stubborn guy, I know.' Nicole laughed weakly.

François dipped the tea bag into the boiling water in a chipped mug. He would meet again with Arthur after school ended on the first day back. François explained the meeting and the stories he received.

'Your lessons planned are already prepared?'

'In a way.'

Her soft voice, like a wounded bird, spoke to him for nearly half an hour that morning. Although she didn't speak of the past, he could hear it swarming in her thoughts like angry bees. He could feel the hatred. Hatred even he couldn't mend.

If it wasn't for her, he never would have met Arthur. She was good at reminding him of that fact.

'Do you want to meet him before Monday?' She asked.

'I'm in no rush. Besides, he needs to work on his new book. I hear he finally escaped that pesky writer's block.'

'Misery and being a writer are one in the same.' Nicole said solemnly. 'And that he did. Granted, I think he was being stubborn. I saw a big book of ideas on his desk. He had written them all down. Then he angrily splashed them with red ink. You'd have thought someone was gutted on that poor book. He doesn't like himself too much. I'll try and change that.'

François bit back his response. Instead, he mustered up a positive grunt.

'Then why don't we meet up later this week?'

'Sounds fine.'

He said a good bye and hung up. Her voice rung in his ears. His cup of tea, long finished, sat in the sink. His life was just as he wanted it to be. The cup inspired that thought, much to his surprise. The way it sat their in a brand new sink with the glinting enamel surrounding it, and the soap suds bubbling at its side.

The home he wanted was peaceful, and this was as tranquil as it could get in a city like Paris. He didn't eat meat and he didn't drink anything fancy. His meals didn't take much digging into his bank account to pay for. He had a job teaching his favourite subject. He wasn't in debt. He had friends. He had a falling out with a past lover, making him realise he didn't want to get married. And, so, what was he missing?

'It's almost like I want to change the world.' He scoffed, moving away from the kitchen and picking up a book to spend the morning with.

* * *

><p>The morning sky was painted turquoise, with a sallow moon still hanging towards the horizon. It was sleepy, still begging all the students who had risen so early to rest their heads on their pillows just for a few more minutes.<p>

A rumble started up between the classmates, all muttering or making jokes. It wasn't as loud as it could be, François thought thankfully. He approached the front of class. He knew better than to spring a topic of discussion among them. They'd never shut up.

'Good morning class. We'll start with something easy, just a review and a new vocabulary word. Get your notebooks out. Go on,' He said. A collective groan escaped the class. He rolled his eyes and turned to the board.

Picking up a piece of chalk. It squeezed as it crossed the board. His penmanship was rolling and smooth, easy to read. He enjoyed writing, his wrist flowing with his prose. He slammed the chalk across when he wrote a dash.

Papers rustled behind him. Seats croaked with movement. Someone hummed quietly in the back of the class. All eyes moved towards him. They liked him. Maybe because he was one of them. Not that anyone would ever admit their endearment, they were beyond that. They showed it enough with their begrudging politeness.

'All right,' François stepped away from the three words he wrote. He lifted his hand, his brown skin dusted with chalk, and tapped beneath the first word. 'The word is "overpopulated". Can someone tell me what it means?'

A hand shot up.

François smiled.

'Someone besides you, Aïsha?'

The hand went back down. The girl looked at him with a small grin and a blush crossing her cheeks. She picked at her light pink veil.

No one raised their hand. François stared back at empty faces.

'Anyone?' He asked, tapping again. 'Well, how about you, Kobe? Can you read it to me from page thirty-two in your book?'

The student, Kobe, gave him a tight-lipped grin. 'Yes sir.' He said flippantly, flipping the book open. His hair was cropped short, showing a green and blue tattoo creeping up from the neck of his hoodie like vines.

'An excessive growth in the population of an area.' Kobe read.

'Thank you.' François said. He ignored Kobe's snickering roll of eyes around the class.

The class continued like this. After the due time, they gathered their belongings and left. François made a note to see if he could get Aïsha into an upper-level class. He felt bad for the small girl hidden behind soft fabrics, everything but her face and hands hidden. She didn't deserve to be held back because her parents couldn't afford the commute from their home to a good school.

The next two classes were conducted in a similar way. The last of which Alfred was in. François half-expected Alfred to stir up some sort of scene. He was the lightest-coloured and blondest of the group of students. Most students who looked like that were thought of as children of drug-addicts who had winded up with a kid.

Nothing really happened. No one payed Alfred much mind. He sat quietly in the back of class, scribbling in his notebook. François then slipped under the false impression that Alfred would be a good student.

After two sessions of counselling, Alfred walked up to him as promised. François looked up from his desk.

'Thank you for coming.'

Alfred sat down silently. His vacant eyes stared somewhere just above François' dark curls. Alfred picked at the backpack between his legs.

'You have a new chain?' François asked.

Alfred reached for his neck.

'Can I see?'

Alfred pulled the glinting chain out of his shirt. At the end was a simple silver cross.

'Interesting.' François said, nodding. 'Did you mother get it for you.'

'Mrs Fontaine got it for me.'

Mrs Fontaine was his adoptive mother. François had spoken with the kind woman. She lived alone.

'That was kind of her.'

'Kind of.'

'How so?'

'I don't understand what it means.'

'It's a symbol of faith.'

'Not my faith.'

François arched his eyebrows.

'What is your faith?'

'I don't know yet.'

François hummed in approval. He wondered if he should speak with Alfred's mother again. He laced his fingers and set them on the desk. Alfred still had the ring on. Now a big chip of paint had come off, exposing the black plastic beneath.

Alfred stared at François. 'What is your faith?'

'Not something I would share with students, I'm afraid.'

Alfred opened his mouth, but the teacher cut him off.

'Now, how was school? Are you doing well?'

Alfred gave a signature, uncaring reply. The boy was distant, but slowly being pulled back. He was curious and, from what François had heard from other teachers, he had a talent in maths.

'I want you to talk to an adult if you feel unwell about anything. And, once a month, whenever you have time, I want you to come talk to me.' François said, writing it down on a half-sheet of paper. The clock above his head ticked on. Alfred watched the second hand glide around the diameter.

François handed him the paper. Alfred pocketed it.

'Ok?'

'Yeah, OK.'

'Good.'

Alfred left again.

* * *

><p><em>Our ink flees paper through water, never meant to be seen by mortal eyes. Bleeding through the water like lost spirits. <em>

Arthur set his pen down. He tore the paper out of his notebook and crushed it into a ball, which he tossed into the trash bin. A growing pile of unused ideas began to pile high. Nicole was going to have a hernia when she saw that he had thrown away thirty pages of his manuscript and deleted over fifty thousand words off the other.

But what could he do? The ideas came but the words were smothered. His fingers refused to work. He spelled words consistently wrong and his heart ached to tell the ideas that plagued him. If only they had a route to escape by. A secret passage to leave while he slept (which was rare nowadays) or a method of destroying them as well.

Arthur stood up and shut his desk lamp off. He went to his kitchen and opened the cabinet. One wouldn't hurt, would it? He dug around in the back, pushing away cereal boxes and half-empty jars. He found what he needed and pulled it forwards.

With a swig of water he took the pill that in less than fifteen minutes would send him happily off into his dreams. He could quit any time, of course, just like he could quit smoking. It was a temporary trade off. He hurt his body to milk out ideas.

He lit a match and walked to the window, sticking half his body out and placing the fuming roll of paper between his lips. The smoke rose from the burning ember into the late evening. All around him orange lights began to illuminate the city.

Tourists and couples walked in and out of the restaurant at the corner of his apartment complex. It was the cheapest of all. None of that fancy escargot and garlic-stuffed breads. It was simply soups and grains. Peasants' food.

In his haze, Arthur picked up a phone and dialled the first number he thought of.

'Hey.' He said.

'You sound horrible.'

'I feel worse, Quinn.'

His brother on the other end sighed.

'What do you need? Don't spend too much on this call. Or I can get our other brothers to go get you. One's in Barcelona for a meeting. Sly arse earning all sorts of money.'

Arthur grinned. The cigarette dangled from one of his hands, its ashes falling into the potted plant that had died three months ago.

'No, I'm in my apartment. I just wanted to talk. You should come, we could go out for a drink.'

'Take your girl out, or that teacher coz of hers that you were going on about.'

'Nicole's working and _that teacher coz of hers_ doesn't drink.'

'He doesn't? If I lived in those slums I would.' His voice was annoyed and irate as always. But he hadn't spoken to his brother in some time and the topic of drinking always aroused his interest.

'No, doesn't touch a drop.'

'Why not?' Quinn sounded as though a personal offence had been made.

Arthur sighed. 'He works near the HLM. And he's pious.'

'He's what?'

'Oh, sorry, my architect brother can't understand simple words.'

'I understood you!' Quinn snapped back.

Arthur imagined his freckled face flushing in anger.

'I was simply surprised. I thought you were opposed to mingling.'

'Mingling? I'm not a rac—'

'No, you idiot, I meant befriending anyone in general. I was surprised about Nicole for one, that you could speak to editors. And then I was even more surprised you could say a bloody sentence to someone else.'

Arthur leaned back, snuffing his cigarette. He walked back into his room. He was too uncaring to feel annoyed.

'I'm no sociopath.'

'That you aren't, but I you didn't deny being utterly hooked on those pills and having some sort of social anxiety.'

'Quinn.'

'I tell the truth, brother.' Arthur heard Quinn yell something to someone behind him. He returned to the phone. 'There you go, getting me late again. We'll talk later. Good night.' He hung up without waiting for a reply.

Arthur set the phone down and went to the couch. He lay down and shut his eyes. The bed was being stagnant from disuse. Arthur knew he should probably drink some water or maybe eat something, but his head felt too nice up in the clouds for him to bother with it.

A moment of sleep, just a moment…

Arthur fell into a deep doze.


End file.
